Mother to Son

by Langston Hughes
 1. Crystal- highly transparent glass with a high refractive index.
Examples:
Crystal chandeliers glittered brightly above them.
The evidence is now crystal clear.

2. Splinters - a small, sharp, broken piece of wood, glass, plastic, or similar

material.
Examples: I got a splinter in my finger.
The wooden fence was covered in splinters.
 3. Tacks - a small, sharp broad-headed nail.
Examples: She tacks their drawings to the wall.
He took the yarn and looped it around each of the tacks in order.
4. Landing - a small platform that is built as part of stairs between main
floor levels and is typically used to allow the stairs to change directions, or
to allow the user a rest.
Examples : The other two go up to the platforms from the staircase landing.
Both staircase landings have an exit-only turnstile that allow passengers
to exit the subway without having to go through the station house.
5. Bare - lacking a natural, usual, or appropriate
covering.
Examples: He tore down the fence with his bare
hands.
The hot sand burned my bare feet.
 James Mercer Langston Hughes was born on February 1, 1901, in Joplin, Missouri.
Hughes’s birth year was revised from 1902 to 1901 after new research from 2018 uncovered
that he had been born a year earlier. His parents, James Nathaniel Hughes and Carrie
Langston Hughes, divorced when he was a young child, and his father moved to Mexico.
He was raised by his maternal grandmother, Mary Sampson Patterson Leary Langston, who
was nearly seventy when Hughes was born, until he was thirteen. He then moved to
Lincoln, Illinois, to live with his mother and her husband, before the family eventually
settled in Cleveland. It was in Lincoln that Hughes began writing poetry.
Hughes began writing poetry when he was in high school, and his class designated him as
“class poet.” Langston Hughes achieved his fame as a poet during the artistic period known
as the Harlem Renaissance. Labeling Hughes as only “a Harlem Renaissance Poet” has
restricted him to only one genre and decade.
 Mother to Son" is a 1922 poem written by Langston Hughes. The poem
follows a mother speaking to her son about her life, which she says "ain't
been no crystal stair". She first describes the struggles she has faced and
then urges him to continue moving forward. It was referenced by
Martin Luther King Jr. several times in his speeches during the
civil rights movement, and has been analyzed by several critics, notably for
its style and representation of the mother.
MOTHER TO SON
Well, son, I’ll tell you:
Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.
It’s had tacks in it,
And splinters,
And boards torn up,
And places with no carpet on the floor—
Bare.
But all the time
I’se been a-climbin’ on,
And reachin’ landin’s,
And turnin’ corners,
And sometimes goin’ in the dark
Where there ain’t been no light.
So boy, don’t you turn back.
Don’t you set down on the steps
’Cause you finds it’s kinder hard.
Don’t you fall now—
For I’se still goin’, honey,
I’se still climbin’,
And life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.